>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose". charlie: secretary of energy earnest moni's is here. he has been negotiating a nuclear agreement with his irani and -- iranian counterpart. he served in the clinton administration's undersecretary for energy and in the white house office of science and technology policy.

or those reasons and more, i'm pleased to have you here for the first time. welcome. sec. moniz: pleased to be here. charlie: we can talk about energy in a broader sense and what you think of where we are in terms of climate and other issues. you have become famous to all of us sitting next to john kerry. the interesting fact is the foreign minister was at the table a few weeks ago. someone you knew at m.i.t. when you were both students. sec. moniz: we overlapped at m.i.t. but did not know each other then. we did not -- we met subsequently in vienna when he was heading the delegation for iran. we did not know each other but i can assure you, we did not have the substantive discussions we had for 30 or 40 hours one-on-one in switzerland. charlie: tell me what your role is. sec. moniz: what happened is, i would say more on the side of the irani and negotiators

initially, to reach an agreement that involved significant limits on the nuclear program that they built and were running. the foreign minister himself they felt having the team of the foreign minister and the head of the nuclear organization would make sense. sec. moniz: that is when i was introduced. so many of the agreements require trade-offs among 10 -- technical things. i was asked to join john kerry again to be a principal negotiator with mr. salahi. i think both sides had good functioning teams, and then we could manage the technical

discussions. i might say, we both had an m.i.t. background. we soon got into a problem-solving mode. hopefully, that shows with the scope and specificity of what we negotiated. charlie: is it one-on-one, just the two of you? sec. moniz: many, many times. charlie: what are you trying to get at, the two of you? sec. moniz: there are trade-offs. the way i look and the way the administration looks at the agreement, the goal here is in the long-term and i do mean long-term. decades. the goal is to hopefully have established confidence in the international community that iran is pursuing a peaceful program of nuclear power and facilities. however, that confidence is

frankly not there today. not to the degree of sanctioning would be a manifestation of that. we start out with a very strong set of restrictions on the program. then, over time, that will eventually go to a long-term again, if everyone performs, in the long-term, we will have a country with a nuclear program and the nonproliferation treaty with the additional protocol that provides transparency. what we had to do was, for example, we sat the u.s. and our p5 colleagues we set a metric for 10 years that a breakout time by which we defined as, if iran decided to rush towards accumulating the iranian plutonium, it would take

them at least a year. charlie: sufficient enriched -- sec. moniz: anything for a first weapon. if they would have such restrictions, even if they made the choice, throw out the inspectors abrogate the agreement, rush to get the material assembled, it would still take them at least a year. charlie: today it is short? so they broke up the negotiations and headed into a rush to nuclear weapons, they could have a bomb? sec. moniz: the fuel. charlie: in a few months. sec. moniz: we are using an unconventional defend -- definition of breakout. he is correct. the standard parlance would be

that breakout time would be the time to a weapon. we are being more conservative. we say, it is the time only to assemble the nuclear materials. and to weaponize would take additional time. we didn't count that. going back -- sec. moniz: this agreement would put it at least a year conservatively. or 10 years. to go back to your question, what do we talk about in negotiations? for example, this issue of rake out time involves trade-off. holy centrifuges, a -- how many centrifuges, how much enriched uranium is in the stockpile what is the rate at which, in a breakout scenario, they could build additional centrifuges? those details have to be played off. fundamentally, we would engage in that.

as was reported in the newspaper he couple weeks ago i or my team would call our laboratories and while he slept a few hours, they would make new calculations to make sure we were observing this breakout. charlie: you have put together among your nuclear physicist colleagues, a series of what? sec. moniz: once i joined secretary in negotiations, it became public that the department of energy was heavily involved. that involvement was there all the time. so we have a series of laboratories and nuclear sites which, fundamentally, is a repository of a lot of nuclear capability in this country. we had seven national laboratories and to bank of our nuclear sites, all engaged in various aspects of analyzing

that technical dimensions of the agreement. charlie: it is said we have a lot of knowledge about where the facilities are and what they are doing. we even have models that some of these labs you referred to. reports of that in the press. what do they tell you? you look and analyze what the iranians are saying to try and verify what assumptions you are making about where they are and what changes might be made in this agreement and what impact they will have? sec. moniz: they can make trade-offs between the uranium stockpile and the number of centrifuges, the enrichment of the stockpile. these are all different parameters we had to balance, always adhering to the president 's direction that we must have a one-year break out. charlie: some say this is not

enough. sec. moniz: the situation in north korea was different in terms of level of inspection. i should say, in comparing to north korea, clearly, the key issue is the degree of transparency and access in verification. in north korea, there were relatively few inspectors. they were very constrained in where they could go and what they could look at. those lessons were part of what drove the international community towards establishing a additional protocol that goes beyond the usual agreement with the international inspection agency and provide additional access and transparency. that is all part of the deal. iran is committed to stay within the protocol forever essentially, at least as long as they are part of the treaty.

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charlie: questions come up about this in terms of, you say this is a conservative time. when it comes to inspection are you satisfied secretary kerry said this is intrusive by this

agreement. in your judgment, is it enough? sec. moniz: the answer is yes. otherwise i wouldn't sign off on it. it has many components, however. we need to carry through on all of them. one thing is, we have in the agreement access to the entire supply chain. all the way back to the iranian mines, continuing surveillance of manufacturing facilities and advanced technology for sealing off equipment that is not in use. consider -- continuous inspections available. if there were an attempt to evade that, they would have to create the entire supply chain covertly.

it would come in many different places. there, we have to say to the combination of the inspections, the access granted through additional protocols, and the app -- let's say, our national means, it would be extraordinarily difficult to imagine the supply chain being put together. charlie: another thing is military bases. they say they will not allow america, or the p5 plus one, or the iaea to inspect military bases, and no other country would. sec. moniz: there are two issues here. one is the ongoing unsuccessful to date process of the iaea looking at the military

dimensions of the past program. there, there is a -- it is still to be finalized, to be honest but there, the iaea and iran must agree on the access the iaea needs to issue their final report on what is called possible military dimensions of their past program. we are talking about going forward. going forward, there will be a process in place with a defined time, by which iran must divide access to sites -- provide access to sites for which there is any rational reason to be concerned. and there, a process is in place that cannot be blocked by any one or two countries. charlie: it is said the u.s. would like to devise devices to

be used in inspections by the iaea. and that the iranians are scared that this would allow the u.s. to spy on them. sec. moniz: things that -- charlie: these are things we want to see more broadly. sec. moniz: in terms of the iaea's activities, not just in inran. getting to more advanced technologies like special seals that if tampered with, communicate directly act to the iaea so they can have a quick inspection, that is something we will have and we hope to have in many places. those kinds of technologies are things that, again, our national laboratories developed. charlie: are they acceptable to iran? sec. moniz: yes.

we have discussed that. charlie: what about the idea of their desire to do r&d on centrifuges? if it goes for 10 years and goes to the end of the agreement, they have done a lot of research on centrifuges. they will be able to come at the end of the decade, be able to be improved in their ability to enrich uranium. sec. moniz: the r&d issues were a point of contention in the discussion. what i want to emphasize is, in the first 10 years, there will be no enrichment by any advanced centrifuge. only the original ir one will be allowed in the first 10 years. in fact, in that decade they --

there will be a rollback of some of their r&d activities, but they were -- will be able to make progress. however, the ability to use advanced centrifuges is part of our breakout calculation and consideration. again -- charlie: it will still take them a while? sec. moniz: a more limited program is on the books. the reality is in 2003, negotiations in 2003 2 -- to 2005 would have a very different set of facts. we have limited the program severely, but they will be able to continue developing nuclear technology for the long-term. charlie: you are referring to the 2003 negotiations.

you said, iran was prepared to implement that in 2000 three talking about unrestricted inspections. the united states government chose the path of confrontation. he said, we were repaired to do this in -- prepared to do this in 2003. sec. moniz: the facts would have been different. they had fewer than 200 centrifuges back then. now, they have 20,000. of great consequence, now they have a uranium stockpile that is 10,000 kilograms enriched to 5%. in the agreement, that will come down to 300 kilograms at 3.67% for 15 years. it is a dramatic reduction in the stockpile. charlie: the president and the secretary of state are depending on you to convince congress and

i believe you have the credibility, you are not a politician, and you can convince con -- congress that this is good for the u.s. and it will, for the next decade, reduce the possibility of advancing. sec. moniz: let me say again john kerry and i are both boston boys. we certainly worked together seamlessly. we have complementary backgrounds. certainly, when i was introduced into the negotiations, it was for addressing technical dimensions, be it enrichment or plutonium production or reactors. certainly, for that part of the agreement i am working intensely with members of congress. but don't forget, there are many other dimensions to the agreement. sanctions relief, military dimensions, secretary kerry is

the principal spokesman for that. secondly there are broader issues being introduced into the discussion. about the nature of the negotiation not the results the nature of the negotiations. secretary kerry and the president are quite in the lead. ♪

charlie: the i say, they don'tranians -- the iranians say , they don't want nuclear weapons. sec. moniz: that is what this agreement is built for. we have specific restrictions that go up to 25 years and some are in effect forever. the idea is, over time we can all gain confidence in that statement. the fact is, today, it is clear. there is not confidence in that statement, at least having applied in the past, because that is white -- why they have the sanctions. charlie: was it the sanctions

that brought them to the table? sec. moniz: i can't answer that question. personally, i believe the sanctions certainly were part of it for sure. but in the end, our job is not to do anything other than have an agreement based upon verification. charlie: is it your judgment that a foreign minister and your counterpart negotiated in good faith and they are prepared to sign a deal that will restrict their ability to have a nuclear weapon? sec. moniz: absolutely. i think there is an excellent chance through hard work. we have an excellent chance of

completing the agreement. the parameters we have already worked out defined this stringent regime for 10 years and 15-20 years. i believe they are prepared to go forward. charlie: some have argued they were trying to delay one more time. sec. moniz: we are converging to a conclusion at the end of june. charlie: what happens if there is no agreement? sec. moniz: if there is no agreement, i will not venture a complete guess, but we do know that congress is likely, for example, to take additional actions. charlie: sanctions or something else? sec. moniz: we will see. we have the bill moving to a vote soon in the senate that is

i think, worked out between the administration and congress to be, at least if there are no added amendments to be acceptable in the sense of giving us the room to complete a deal by june 30 and then congress will have a voice. i think we will have -- i think i am optimistic that we will have a good deal to present, and it will be incumbent on iran to observe the terms to the letter. charlie: and if they do that we will insist that the drawdown on the sanctions -- it will be phased in? we have not signed off on that? sec. moniz: i think we have been pretty clear that there will certainly be phasing in the

sense that the key parameters of what we discussed earlier, the parameters that determine for example, that one-year breakout time those have to be put in place for the sanctions relief to kick in. for example, that 10,000 kilograms coming down to 300 kilograms. it must be done. charlie: before you eliminate sanctions? sec. moniz: that's my view. secretary kerry is the one who will negotiate that. charlie: otherwise there's no beginning? sec. moniz: the general agreement is, we need to have a key nuclear parameter met before we get the kicking in a sanctions relief. charlie: they said the french were tougher than we are on the iranians. sec. moniz: sec. moniz: i think it is an

achievement telco here at the p5 plus one on this. in that last weekend, the foreign ministers of all six countries were present and working on negotiations. many of our partners, including the french came up with important ideas to help in the closing of the agreement. charlie: characterize for me how remarkable it is to have an agreement at this moment that has not been completed and maybe not completed, but a framework. it is remarkable that we got this far? looking at where you were when we started. sec. moniz: look at the reaction. i think frankly when it came out initially, there was a lot of surprise at the scope and specificity of what we negotiated. charlie: you were surprised you got what you got yes? sec. moniz: that has been

expressed widely a -- including among those were skeptical. charlie: why do they want to do this? sec. moniz: cruel -- clearly, getting relief from the sanctions is something -- charlie: that's what sec moniz: i think there is a real eagerness. a lot of young people there. i think a lot of those young people are looking at rejoining the west in a more normal way. charlie: is it fair to say most

people can achieve these objectives? that it might really open up around and lead to them being able to have a better relationship with the rest of the world and might, in fact lead to a broader consideration of other issues that separate iran and the united states or p-5 plus one. sec moniz: first of all, i have to make it clear, he negotiated a nuclear agreement and it was about a verifiable agreement that met the conditions. so i want to make it clear that aspirations for that outcome that you described and i do share them, but they did not influence this. charlie: this was only a nuclear deal. sec moniz: hard-nosed agreement -- charlie: nobody was saying we can do this or that. sec moniz: no. on the other hand, i don't see how we could not wish to have that aspiration realized particularly fit means that some

of the other iranian actions that make us pretty unhappy were to be ended. charlie: before we turn to other things, what has not worked? i get the impression as to when the sanctions will be lifted there's not been a final agreement on that. sec. moniz: i would say exactly the phasing and triggers for relieving sanctions still need to be worked out. there are still issues. we mentioned earlier in terms of i.a.e. and iran. so that that can be closed out and there are other issues which we haven't talked about. again, it's not in my bailiwick but they will be continuing u.n. sanctions, for example, for the ballistic program, the arm embargo issues that i think still need to be addressed but that's for the foreign managers.

charlie: if you have enriched uranium sufficient to build a nuclear weapon, as a physicist what does it take to then have a nuclear weapon and be able to deliver it? sec. moniz: as you know, i cannot answer that question fully but with high enriched uranium, i think the general consensus is moving to at least a crude weapon that could certainly spoil a perfectly good day otherwise for a country with iran's scientific and technical capabilities is clearly doable. it's a whole different issue to the second part of your question to of course then be able to design that weaponization for delivery on missiles, etc., but obviously we're not going to get

into the details of that. charlie: some have said at best this kicks the can down the road. is that unfair? sec. moniz: absolutely. again, this agreement is an agreement which has many milestones at many time periods for quite a long time and its goal is in the end. as i said earlier, it's not a very short time frame but in the end the goal would be to have the international community have confidence that iran has, in fact, demonstrated that this program is for nothing but peaceful purposes. if it proves otherwise then we still have the options on the table to react. charlie: let me return to energy policy. what is our energy policy? sec. moniz: our policy, the president's policy, the energy policy have been stated pretty clearly. we have three high-level objectives.

one is support continued economic growth. good jobs, etc., and certainly the energy revolution of these last years has been very important for that. secondly, energy security, and i want to emphasize that energy security is not just something within our own borders. it's something that also involves a collective energy security with our allies and friends. and third, of course, the environmental challenge, most especially the challenge of global warming and climate change and on to the climate side, the president's action plan in 2013 emphasized both aspects mitigation -- that is, get greenhouse gas emissions down and stop or at least slow the global warming. mitigate the impacts of climate change but secondly, adaptation,

that the plan recognized that we are seeing impacts of global warming. we will see more and we also have to adapt at the same time as we try to minimize the consequences. charlie: is the impact more alarming than you ever might have imagined? sec. moniz: i think in almost every case, the signals that nature is sending us are at the bad extreme of the uncertainty bands that the scientists have been telling us. that scientists have often underestimated the rate of change that we have seen. charlie: give us a graphic illustration. sec. moniz: for one thing, a very direct illustration would be things like the shrinkage of some of the ice cover in the world, glaciers, etc. we are seeing sea level going up. i was just down in houston where sea level has come up eight inches.

the acidification of the oceans. of course, the sea level rise combined with more extreme weather so storm surges have led to great destruction, whether in the gulf region or something like sandy in the northeast. we are seeing these unprecedented droughts in many parts of the world, certainly including the western parts of the united states and california. increased wildfires associated with -- charlie: is that all associated with climate change? sec. moniz: it is certainly consistent with the expectations for decades of climate science. so again, it's global issues absolutely, the more and more you get to a -- small regions, the more it's difficult to assign responsibility of an individual connection to global warming, but the patterns are completely consistent with what

we've been expecting for decades. so, you know, this may be a little bit flippant but, you know, the old story about if it walks like a duck and looks and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. so the globe is warming -- charlie: important consequences for all of us. sec. moniz: the impact of co2 emissions, for example greenhouse gases is there to see. after all, we've had a pretty good idea between the connection between higher co2 connections and average warming since the 19th century. the 19th century. charlie: those 18 somethings. [laughter] sec. moniz: yes, the only difference then was the expectations was the problem

wouldn't arise for 1,000 years because in those day is they did not predict the rate of economic growth and industrialization so we're seeing it play out -- industrialization. charlie: why do you think there are so many doubters? they seem to be loud. from congress to some people in the academy. sec. moniz: some people in the academy. charlie: do you know anybody that you respect as a fellow scientist? sec. moniz: i won't go there. in this dimension i have real questions about it. charlie: what do you mean in this dimension you have real questions? sec. moniz: let's say this. i'm going to combine science and policy a little bit because in the end it's what we do about it that really matters so if you're a scientist, you can certainly focus on lots of questions that

are not fully resolved in the climate science, which in my view does not take away at all from the bigger conclusion about we are seeing the drive to more warming. the more warming is creating a number of the phenomenon that we discussed earlier. the issue is do the -- in science, research, there are always open questions as you go farther and farther into the issues. do those questions rise to the level to obviate the need for public policymakers to take prudent steps now to address these issues? i think the answer is clearly no. we need to take those issues. i mean, the idea that we would not respond -- i mean, if you were a corporate c.e.o. and your risk manager told you that there's only a 9 % probability of something bad happening and

you said oh, well -- i don't need to react to that. you wouldn't be in that job very long. charlie: you think the risk we're talking about is 98% or 100%? sec. moniz: it's very close to 100 in my view. certainly in terms of what we need to know to take pursuant policy steps. charlie: is this disagreement over what's causing global warming than the reality of global warming in your judgment? sec. moniz: the reality of global warming is reality, as you say. no one disputes it. then there are arguments about whether it's manmade. again, in one hearing i made the statement they know how to count and therefore i know what the conclusion is and that remains the case. we know how much co2, for example, we emit from activities.

some of that net gets absorbed by oceans, etc., but we know that we are increasing the greenhouse gases. charlie: the sequestration a significant alternative? sec. moniz: going back to your original question about what's our policy. we've laid out in great detail, one of those challenges is the climate challenge, a very important one and this is an important time to address that internationally. but our philosophy, the president's policy has been what's called all of the above so we believe that it's our job to enable all fuels to have a potential in a low-carbon marketplace. like coal that involves carbon caption sequestration. that's the way to address it. i should say carbon capture utilization and sequestration because, of course, there are opportunities to use co2 for beneficial purposes which helps

pay the cost of the carbon capture. today this there is utilization going on by using the co 2 to enhance recovery of oil from mature wells. but that's the key. and as with everything else, by the way, all of these technologies, in many ways the goal of innovation is to continually push down the costs and we're seeing a revolution in costs of low carbon technologies. charlie: we're seeing a revolution in costs of alternative sources and i'm told and i've read that you're optimistic about sun. sec. moniz: yes, i am. as was thomas edison. [laughter] charlie: so what feeds your optimism about solar as an alternative and a practical and price-acceptable alternative?

sec. moniz: first of all, of course, the resources is enormous, as you probably know. charlie: then there's the question of capture, isn't there? sec. moniz: yes. you start out -- in one hour the solar energy reaching the surface of the earth is roughly speaking the energy used by the world for a year. so we have a big resource. now, we have to capture it, do it more efficiently. charlie: and store it. sec. moniz: and then as the amount of it grows, then we have to store it. so first of all, we have seen -- by the way, in the last six years we've had probably a 20-x deployment of solar in terms of amount. still small but it's growing very fast. 20 times what it was 10 years ago.

a big part of that has been the cost reduction. the costs have come down incredibly. charlie: the technology? sec. moniz: technology absolutely. technology and the beginning of scale. so manufacturing, scale, etc. i believe we will reach the so-called holy grail of a solar module costing 50 cents per walt. -- watt. i believe we'll do that within a few years. we are well below $1 now heading towards 50 cents and maybe below. charlie: from solar? sec. moniz: from solar. from a solar module. charlie: what does it cost today for what we use today? power plants? sec. moniz: well, so a -- depends on what the plant is. certainly a nuclear plant is

maybe $5 per watt. charlie: wow. 50 cents versus $5? sec. moniz: yeah. however, to be fair, the nuclear plant will run 90% of the time. the solar module will produce effectively say 20% of the time. but you go to a natural gas plant and you're talking $1 to $1.50 per watt. charlie: is natural gas a bridge ? sec. moniz: we have called it a bridge to low carbon. driven by market forces, natural gas is at a price point where it has displaced quite a bit of coal and in doing so lowered our carbon emissions. charlie: what are we using that for? sec. moniz: a lot of it is an increase in energy but it's also a very low cost of energy in the united states.

it's been a huge factor in increasing our manufacturing capacity and bringing companies back to the united states for manufacturing because the operating costs are low. charlie: right, and everybody knows we desperately need to increase our manufacturing capabilities. sec. moniz: and we've created -- the united states economy in the last years, 700,000, 800,000 manufacturing jobs and gas is a part of that story. charlie: wind? sec. moniz: uh-huh. charlie: will it contribute? sec. moniz: it is contributing quite a lot. its deployment has increased maybe threefold. 20 fold for solar. wind is now up to producing over

4.5 maybe percent of our electricity in the united states. so it's becoming material. technology continues to improve as well in terms of cost reduction. in terms of larger turbines that are more efficient, etc. so wind, i think still has a big way to go. charlie: what's the impact of the agreement we made with china? ernest: the first impact is that the announcement last november has changed the name of the international discussions on climate change quite dramatically. let's face it, there was often a fallback position in many quarters, oh, well, china isn't doing anything. well, china is something.

for one thing it has changed the nature of the game because china and the united states together -- charles: because they made a commit? sec. moniz: they made a commitment and we believe they are very, very serious. charlie: they have a very serious pollution problem. don't they use a lot of coal? sec. moniz: yes, so their coal -- they are now using half of the coal that the world uses and -- but in their commitment now i think we're going to see coal use in china peak maybe in this decade and begin to go down. charlie: how about nuclear? sec. moniz: nuclear, they have by far the biggest construction program in the world. immense. charlie: they're committed to nuclear? sec. moniz: they have a big commitment on nuclear. charlie: is their connection to solar ahead of us? sec. moniz: i wouldn't say so they are producing a lot of solar but i personally believe we still lead in innovation and i think he still lead in the technology.

charlie: what's the impact of price? for example, oil recently went back up this week over $60 a barrel. is it going to continue to rise in your judgment and what impact will that have? will that allow much more tracking on our part? -- fracking on our part? there was some reduction in fracking as oil prices went down to $35 or whatever they got to. sec. moniz: first of all, the oil price is still quite below what it was a year ago, let's say. charlie: people i know in that business have been using an assumption of $70 a barrel for a lot of their declarations. -- calculations. sec. moniz: even when the oil price was down to $50, let's say, our energy administration the data arm of the government

still predicted that this year we would produce more oil than , in 2014 that there is a reduction of the so-called rig count but that production has actually still been going up. it is also clear that when the prices were even lower than they are today, that many companies were reducing their capital investments for future exploration production, etc. so we don't see our production particularly going down. we see the rate of increase moderating for sure. charlie: do you have questions about fracking in terms of the environmental issues? sec. moniz: i think we have the approaches that can really keep the environmental footprint of hydraulic fracturing quite manageable but we have to make sure that those practices are always being followed.

you know, the major problems over the years that have been caused with hydraulic fracturing operations have really been from poor well completion. it is not about the fracking itself. charlie: bringing it to the surface? sec. moniz: yeah, getting the water down and getting it up etc. so best practices have to be always put in place and threaten some of the issues around some of the seismic activity that is now being looked at. that has come -- in fact, an academy report recently emphasized that that's coming from disposing of wastewater as opposed to the tracking itself. -- fracking itself. charlie: is there so much research going on in battery capacity that we're going to see a higher velocity of change and capacity? sec. moniz: absolutely. batteries remain, of course, a huge transformational potential.

i could go through all the things that we're doing but let me just put it this way, that we have reached costs, batteries. there was an announcement recently of a home battery -- charlie: elon musk trying to say he was making the batteries for the home. sec. moniz: the tesla announcement. he was talking about $350 per kilowatt hour of storage. if you look at batteries for electric vehicles, that's kind of the ballpark of where we are there as well. the holy grail is getting down to $100, $125 a kilowatt hour, so we have a ways to go. but the cost reduction from where it was only a few years ago, over $1,000. once again, it's the same story. as we are pushing on these

technologies, we are driving these costs now. and let's say for a vehicle, the battery that you need for a plug-in hybrid may be 15 kilowatt hours. suddenly it doesn't look like it's kind of out of the ballpark and if we get another factory or two we could see again another transformation in transportation, in energy storage at the utility level, at the consumer level. the consumer level would be very important. if you have a solar system, you want to integrate it with the battery so you could shift the solar power to the time when you want it so these technologies are incredible. look at l.e.d. lighting, right? you take a 60-watt incandescent

bulb and now you can go to a big-box store and get your nine-or 10-watt l.e.d. so you're using 1/6 of the energy for the same effective lighting and the costs are now approaching $5. so we are seeing, i firmly believe, a clean energy technology revolution and this is in the end going to be an important stimulant to the policy steps we need for a clean energy economy. charlie: what is the threat in your judgment, and how real is it, of our electric grid to cyber terrorism? ernest: well, first of all, if we didn't think it was a serious problem we wouldn't have assembled a whole set of utility c.e.o.'s in a group to address cyber. obviously i can't get into too many specifics but first of all our energy infrastructure, not only the grid, but our energy infrastructure is a major target

of cyber attacks. charlie: you mean like every day? sec. moniz: like every day. even less time than that. charlie: like every hour. sec. moniz: and the number is increasing. fortunately -- charlie: is it terror? sec. moniz: our defenses thus far have been that we've not had a major incident from that but we have to keep staying ahead of the bad guys. charlie: what happened with hurricane sandy is an example of what can happen when there's a serious assault -- sec. moniz: that's right. and the one most you big to us is the electric grid. you're right. an irony is, and this is what we're working on very, very hard is that a solution to many of our challenges is more and more use of i.t. in the grid.

the transmission grid senses any reliability incidents coming. in the distribution grid do you get good services and yet the more i.t. we have the more we have to guard against a cyber threat so this is a very, very major focus. charlie: thank you for coming. it's a pleasure to have you. sec. moniz: thank you. it's great. charlie: thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

es. bonds shaken and stirred. concerns about the greek debt drama.

the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. do follow me on twitter. indonesia trading away, just getting underway. what sort of flavor do we have from the session so far, david? david: the regional benchmark is lower. the dollar is wrong or against most. we're looking at a fourth day of declines for oil prices. there are exceptions from this decline. a few exceptions -- australia one of them. still very heavy volume there. it was a five